Colin Davies

24 September 2026

Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight.
And, lo, the hunter of the east has caught the sultan’s turret in a noose of light!

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable – Christopher Howse: ‘A Pilgrim in Spain’

NB: The archive.ph way to get behind a paywall in Spain is now closed off. A VPN doesn’t help in these circumstances but a Reader View in you browser might well do so. For the moment, when I post a link, if there’s a RV in brackets after the link, you might well be able to read it that way, If there is no RV in brackets, it will mean that the article is free to view. Or that I’ve forgotten to type it . . .

Cosas de España/Galiza

Ceuta:

  • After weeks of (possibly excessive diplomacy), the PM has demanded Morocco strengthens their side of the border. He’s also complained about lack of cooperation from the government there(RV).
  • Well, that was 2 days ago: yesterday he reverted to talk of good cooperation. Must have got out of bed on the other side.
  • Maria writes here on how the Right and Far Right parties have reacted to events.

The public is said to be confused about the legality of pepper spray – currently popular, it’s said, in Ceuta. In fact, it’s legal to sell approved products in Spain to adults, even though it’s classified as a (non-lethal) weapon. Among the approved products, the most popular is a cloud-like spray system, which doesn’t require the same level of precision or steady hand as other formats—crucial factors when a person is under stress or in a state of panic. So, good for users with no prior experience. But buying an unapproved product on line might result in a fine of at least €601(sic).

Good to see that one of our major drug traffickers was sentenced to 17 years in prison by the Supreme Court this week, though this was almost half of what the prosecution had sought. He has the ‘honour’ of having been Galicia’s first big narco and has already spent 30 of his 70 years in prison.

Re the world championship triathlon finals which started last night:-

  • With 5.000 triathlon athletes here, Pv city is flooded with lithe bodies, dressed appropriately for temperatures in the 30s. There’s probably some males as well. Actually, many of them look as if they only consume energy drinks. Can’t be much fun to dine with. Especially if they’re obsessive about swimming, biking and running. Which, I guess, is quite likely.
  • My neighbour expressed astonishment at how many Brits he’d seen in the opening procession for the triathlon event last night. So was I, in fact. I had to laugh when I later offered a group of 3 to share my table and they said they were looking for a table for 11. And a unicorn, I assumed.
  • This morning, such was the number of vehicles parked on the O Burgo side of the bridge, it took me almost 30 minutes to walk into town, compared with 12 normally. And this was after spending 10-15 minutes trying to find somewhere nearer to park. Clearly, I’ll have to revert to my pre-Covid routine of car plus bike. Until it starts to rain on Sunday. Hey ho. Good exercise.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism.

The United States of Trump America

Relevant Books

China

See the above update on the Middle East war for Xi’s comments in New York.

And the 2nd podcast from The Daily Beast.

Spanish

  • Alhajas: Jewels, jewellery
  • Nabizas: Turnip greens
  • Leche de Nabiza: Milk from cows fed on nabizas, in winter.

Did you know?

Having read that Stalin slaughtered most of his inner circle, I wondered if the (few) survivors had shared any characteristics. Perplexity replied: In short, the clearest common thread among those who survived Stalin’s purge of people close to him was being embedded in his inner circle; demonstrating absolute political loyalty; and actively collaborating in the repression of others, which made them useful and non-threatening to Stalin’s personal control.

For the full answer, see the end of this post.

You Have to Laugh

Seen on a T shirt. Let’s hope that Big Beautiful Bill is the name of Trump’s cellmate

Finally

Someone took a roundabout too fast. Or had to take evasive measures to avoid someone else ignoring a signal . . .

Finally . . . Finally

Gardening news . . .

  • Acting on advice, I’m trying to eradicate smut grass by deracinating the seed stalks. Trouble is that, no sooner have I – with difficulty – dug up 30-50 of them, another bunch of at least 20-30 appears the next day, each up to 4cm high, with hundreds of seeds at the top of them. Hopefully not from bits of the root of the previous ones. If they aren’t, I should succeed in time.
  • Before spraying a weedkiller on a small, flattish weed on a pebble path, I decided to check what it was and if it would grow upwards. It turns out to be something called Lawn-leaf/Kidney Weed/Pony Foot, and it possibly won’t. So, it will act as ground cover to prevent the germination of worse weeds. As does the prolific flattish weed I planted down the side of the house, where it’s too damp for grass. So, execution has been stayed. Pro tem.
  • Despite putting out mealworms, I still haven’t seen a robin again, though I have heard its song. I think.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

STALIN’S SURVIVORS

Among the people closest to Stalin who survived the Great Purge (1937–38), the strongest common factor was political proximity to Stalin combined with unquestioning loyalty and active participation in the terror, rather than any demographic trait like age, ethnicity, or background.

Historians who have studied Stalin’s inner circle identify several overlapping characteristics that tended to protect people from being purged:

Membership in the Politburo or very close institutional proximity to Stalin

  • The only institutional characteristic that offered a degree of immunity was Politburo membership. Several of Stalin’s secretaries and close aides (for example, Poskrebyshev) and key security figures (such as Beria and Mekhlis) also survived
  • Long-standing, visible loyalty to Stalin before the purges

The majority of Central Committee members who survived politically and physically were men who had already been part of Stalin’s inner circle in the 1920s or had been drawn into it in the years immediately before the purges. Many had been in “constant, almost daily contact with Stalin throughout the period of the Purge.”

Willingness to join in persecuting others

  • Survival correlated with a readiness to participate actively in the spiral of persecution—signing arrest orders, denouncing colleagues, and publicly supporting Stalin’s line. Voroshilov, for example, survived in part because he “did not defend his colleagues” during the army purges; instead he “signed off on their arrests and denounced them as traitors.”

Dependence on Stalin for power, not independent authority

  • Stalin preferred men whose power derived from him alone. Figures with strong independent reputations or professional prestige (like Tukhachevsky in the military) were more vulnerable. Survivors tended to be “loyal executors, not rivals.”

Slightly older age on average among political survivors

  • Among the 1934 Central Committee, the average birth year of political survivors was 1888 versus 1890 for the whole committee, suggesting a modest tendency for older members to survive, though this was far from decisive.

What did not reliably protect people

Several factors that might seem protective turned out not to matter much:

  • Ethnicity: Ethnic factors “do not seem to have been important.” Only slightly more than half of the political survivors were Great Russians, and nearly a quarter were Jews, despite Stalin’s later anti‑Semitism.
  • International role: Having an international role (e.g., Litvinov, Lozovskii, Manuil’skii) did not generally save the diplomatic corps or Comintern leadership as a group
  • Competence or professional reputation: In the military especially, competence and foreign respect could increase danger; Stalin feared independent centers of authority.

Representative survivors from Stalin’s close circle

Those who made it through the purges and remained in or near the inner circle included:

  • Vyacheslav Molotov
  • Lazar Kaganovich
  • Anastas Mikoyan
  • Kliment Voroshilov
  • Andrey Andreev
  • Lavrenty Beria (who later helped purge the purgers)
  • Georgy Malenkov and, later, Nikita Khrushchev (who rose during/after the purges)

Many of these men were not only close to Stalin but also deeply implicated in implementing the terror.

The Usual Links

This – from veteran blogger Lenox Napier – is an excellent weekly newsletter (Business Over Tapas) on all matters Spanish. Indispensable for those who needs insights on how and why things happen here.

You can get my posts by email as soon as they’re published. With the added bonus that they’ll contain the typos I’ll discover later. I believe there’s a box for this at the bottom of each post. If you do this but don’t read the posts, I will delete your subscription. So perhaps don’t bother if you have other reasons for subscribing . . .

I can also be read on X at Thoughts from Galicia. And on Substack here. I no longer post on Facebook.

For new readers: If you’ve landed here looking for info on Galicia or Pontevedra, try here. If you’re passing through Pontevedra on the Camino, you’ll find a guide to the city there.

If you´re thinking of moving to Spain, this link should be useful to you. And this, on the annual costs of owning property here.

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